Girls Build LA

Brand identity for Girls Build LA, a not-for-profit LA Promise Fund program aiming to close the gender gap in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. Girls Build LA challenges young women from public schools in LA County to use STEM principles and 21st Century learning skills to effect social change and solve the problems of tomorrow.

The identity is inspired by the language of STEM fields, the use of superscript is a nod to the periodic table of elements and mathematic notations such as raising to a power, eg. y2. The brand typeface Visuelt, is a strong yet friendly geometric face with intricate technical details.

The branding leverages the first part of the program's name—"GirlsBuild'—with fill-in-the-blank word play to communicate the endless things that young women can and do build. This use of language presents the opportunity for the brand to expand both visually and verbally.

Project CreditsDeva Pardue, Designer

The Wing

Identity, collateral and web design for New York based women's club, The Wing. Founded by partners Audrey Gelman and Lauren Hassan, The Wing is a home base for women on their way. Part co-working space and part social event space, The Wing has showers, lockers, vanities, a lactation room, and a cafe/bar.

The identity is designed to be both soft and bold at the same time. The use of three typefaces (Bureau Grotesk, Bianco Sans, and Bianco Serif), a broad color palette, and various W marks creates a dynamic and surprising system that doesn't appear over-branded at first but is full of small, thoughtful details that add up to a cohesive experience for people in the know. The messaging is witty and sharp, capturing the club’s fearless attitude, paired with a look and feel that is scholarly, elegant, and unapologetically feminine. Read more here.

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Identity system, signage, advertising and collateral for the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The world class encyclopaedic art museum was having trouble engaging with its community in a lasting way and wanted to develope a bolder and more consistant voice to assert itself in the city's vibrant cultural landscape. Working closely with the Museum we first tackled it's name—formally the acronym was pronounced "M-I-A" which holds the negative connotation "Missing in Action", stands for Miami International Airport, and is an English rapper. We recommended that the museum embrace the fact that they not only had a pronounceable acronym, "Mee-ah", but one that has positive meanings in cultures all over the world—Mia means "mine", "my own", and "beloved". Just saying the word encourages a connection to the museum.

We then designed the new logo mark—which reinforces the acronym be read as a word rather than spelled out—and the museum's proprietary typeface which gives them a voice too. The new identity is very much a language driven one, including statements like "Mia is Mine" and a system that pairs a verb with the logo on various applications—"Ask Mia", "Visit Mia", "Celebrate Mia", etc.

The identity is bold, pragmatic, and versatile. The width of the M in the mark is equal to the width of the i and a combined allowing for an alternate stacked logo and a pattern that reads both horizontally and vertically. Read more here.

For All Womankind

For All Womankind is a design initiative for Fempowerment. Posters featuring positive feminist illustration and messaging are sold online with the purpose of raising money for the Center for Reproductive Rights and Emily's List—two not-for-profit organizations working to advance reproductive freedoms and to elect progressive pro-choice women to office.

For All Womankind offered free sign PDF downloads for the Women's March on January 21st, 2017. During the days leading up to the march the femme clenched fists image went viral and was Instagrammed by Rihanna, Reese Witherspoon, and Naomi Campbell to name a few. Over 4,000 people in the US alone and more abroad downloaded the free PDFs while poster sales also sky rocketed. The initiative has raised over 12,000 dollars and numbers are still growing. Check out the Instagram here.

Bike New York

Identity, website, advertising campaigns, and collateral for Bike New York. A New York City non-profit dedicated to bike education, Bike New York also organizes the Five Boro Bike Tour every year, the world’s biggest charitable bike ride. The logo is straight forward and bold yet approachable and the color palette is inspired by the city's bike lanes. The identity utilizes a custom version of Sharp Sans — Bike Sans. Read more here.

Unfinished Conversations

Unfinished Conversations: New Work from the Collection is a collection show at the Museum of Modern Arton view March 19 thru July 30, 2017. The show brings together works by more than a dozen artists, made in the past decade and recently acquired by MoMA. The artists that make up this intergenerational selection address current anxiety and unrest around the world and offer critical reflections on our present moment.

Inspired by political manifestos, the design for the exhibition title wall takes the usually secondary introductory text and blows it up huge. While this gives it a bold and declaratory presence the use of the museum's proprietary typeface and neutral palette allow for it to remain somewhat subtle and secondary to the art.

ArtTable

ArtTable is a New York based non-profit organization whose mission is to advance leadership roles for women in the visual arts. I worked with them to design and produce save the dates, invitations and a program for their 35th Anniversary Benefit and Award Ceremony.

The design utilizes a portrait of the 2015 benefit honorees, adding texture and color to a primarily type driven design.

Montague Street BID

Identity re-design for the Brooklyn Heights Business Improvement District (BID), Montague Street. The logo is inspired by the shape of the district itself when viewed from above. This modified rectangle is transformed into a graphic device that houses the BID name and easily tucks into the letter M, where it becomes one of the letter's legs. Read more here.

Pentagram Papers 43

The 43rd edition of the Pentagram Papers features 33 pen and ink drawings by Arline Simon depicting the characters of the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings. The book also includes an essay by Emily Oberman about her mother, Arline and an introductory essay by Victor Navasky, former editor of The Nation, current chair of the Columbia Journalism Review and author of Naming Names, the definitive account of the Hollywood blacklist and the Red Scare in 1950s America. Read more here.

La Pecora Bianca

Identity and signage for La Pecora Bianca (The White Sheep), a health focused Italian farm-to-table restaurant in New York's flatiron district. The word mark is set in Futura Passata—a softened version of Futura with varying widths—and accompanied by a handwritten script tagline "Caffé e Cucina". The Sheep motif was very important to the client and went through various iterations. The illustrative curls in the final sheep drawing were then applied to the hand painted tile we designed for the interior.

The Italian farmhouse inspired space is an all day coffee bar that serves breakfast, lunch, cocktails, and dinner. Interior unlacquered brass signage signals these meal shifts with clock hands incorporated in the type to indicate the times for colazione (breakfast), spuntino (snack), aperitivo (aperitif), etc.

Montauk Blue Hotel

Logo, signage and collateral for the Montauk Blue Hotel. Formally known as Ocean Beach resort, this Montauk staple has been a popular oceanfront motel since 1982. The logo mark, a simple modernist line drawing takes the form of the building itself. This concept extends to other areas of the identity where materials such as key fobs and room door signs are branded with simple line drawing representations of themselves.

Some of the images shown here are proof of concept only. Although the identity was implemented to some extent it wasn't overseen by Pentagram or fully actualized across various applications.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Opening Titles for the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, a Netflix original comedy series from 30 Rock creators Tina Fey and Robert Carlock. Kimmy is a 20-something who is rescued from a doomsday cult after 15 years of living underground. The identity is a nod to her progression as she re-emerges into the world, frozen in her tween-age years. Read more here.

Philbrook Museum of Art

The Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma has holdings in modern and contemporary art and design. The museum was in the process of opening it's second location when Pentagram began its Identity redesign.

The logo mark, a P for Philbrook was created by placing a square over the City and isolating the areas of the museum's two locations. The form also resembles a human face, a subject of artists throughout history, and is a warm and accessible mark that connects the museum to the community of people who enjoy its programs. Read more here.

Billboard Magazine

Redesign of the iconic music magazine.

Working closely with Billboard's Creative Director, Andrew Horton, our team revamped, reorganized, and emboldened the entire interior of the magazine. New typefaces were introduced including LL Brown, Lyon Display and Atlas Grotesk for headers, Lyon text for Body, and Ziggurat for Special features.

The logo was completely redrawn and set tighter and entirely in lowercase. It retains its familiarity and emphasizes the original geometric forms.

Film Independent Website

Re-design of Film Independent's website to coincide with the launch of their new brand identity. Various bright and vibrant colors that represent each of the organization's educational offerings, annual award shows, and events help the user navigate around the website while the brand's hero red and custom typeface maintain brand recognition throughout. The bold use of type, color and oversized buttons capture the spirit of independent film.

The Library

Poster design for the world premiere of The Library, a play at the Public Theater. Written by Scott Burns (Side Effects, Contagion, The Bourne Ultimatum) and directed by Academy Award-winning director, Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Erin Brockovich, Ocean’s Eleven).

The play, which has strong religious overtones, takes place during the aftermath of a school shooting where the audience is asked to examine its relationship with the truth.